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Nepal Trip - 4

Day 22: We travelled back to Bharatpur to re-connect with the café owner. The bus ride took around 5 hours so it was a good chance to pray in tongues under my breath. When we got to the motel Mike was feeling terrible. He said he had a fever and asked me to pray for him so I told the fever to leave him then ordered some dinner. He told me afterwards that he felt like something left him when I said that and he started to feel better.

Day 23: Met the café owner at 7am at the café to discuss plans for the day. We had plans to go to a village that was around 10km’s away. We needed two motorbikes and 2 drivers for that so we were waiting for one man to turn up to drive us there. We were waiting for so long that by 9am we decided to take a rickshaw to a local village that the café owner knew of to pray for some people. One of the locals was a strong believer and spoke fluent English. He had no plans that day so he became our interpreter.

One old man had heart problems and the doctors weren’t prepared to operate on him because of his age. We prayed for him. There was no discernible difference, but we believe that something happens every time we pray so we believed he would recover. There were about 6-7 people at the house. Some were believers but not all so Mike shared the gospel with them using our new-found interpreter. Mike was taking a long time and our driver was waiting for us at the café so I left to meet up with him and left Mike to continue sharing.

At the café, the man had got tired of waiting for us so had long gone. I sat down at the café again and waited for Mike to show up. Mike had an amazing testimony when he turned up. The interpreter, Bikash, offered Mike a ride to the café but had little to no petrol in his motorbike. He stopped at the petrol station to fill it up but had no money and Mike only had a few rupees on him (a few cents in $NZ). He used that up on petrol and hoped they would get to the café. As they were travelling, Mike clearly heard a voice say to him, ‘check your zip pocket.’ He tapped Bikash on the shoulder and told him to pull over. He looked in his back pocket and there was 1,000 rupees (about $12NZ). This was enough to fill up Bikash’s motorbike. It was clear that God wanted us to speak at the village.

When Mike got to the café, the man who had left because he didn’t want to wait for us had come back. By now it was around 12pm and I hadn’t had much to eat all day. I have done enough fasting in the past that it wasn’t worrying me though. We could now travel out to the first village as planned to pray for people.

When we got to the village we started chatting with the locals about various doctrines and beliefs they had been questioning. One thing I always did at a new village was to show them pictures of my family. I believe it helps you to connect with people and shows them that you are a normal person. When I did that at this village, one old man said that my family look Nepali!

One person was wary of false doctrines and asked how they could know if what we were teaching was true. I thought that was a great question and let Mike answer it. He shared the parable that Jesus told about how the wheat and the tares grow together and then shared how there was no way they could know for sure whether we were teaching the truth or not. We encouraged them to ask God and compare what we were saying to scripture. Interestingly the man walked off halfway through Mike’s answer. The people that stayed were happy to keep asking questions.

The only other discussion topic I remember is when they asked whether communion is a meal or not. Apparently, some other missionaries had been there recently and shared that it is a meal rather than a religious symbol. We re-iterated that point and encouraged them that whenever they eat together with other believers and remember Jesus, regardless of the venue, they are having communion.

We then prayed for healing for a few of them and taught them to do the same. Some of the people were healed but with some others it was hard to tell if they were healed because they either couldn’t test it or were babies. We believe they were in either case.

We talked with them also about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. We had noticed in previous villages that the people confused water baptism with Holy Spirit baptism. A lot of people believed they got both at the same time and not many of them spoke in tongues. We asked if any of them wanted to speak in tongues and one man came forward. We prayed for him for a long time but he didn’t speak in tongues. As we were praying I felt God say to me that he had unforgiveness that was stopping him receiving. I said this through an interpreter but the man didn’t say anything. We asked him later what was happening and he said he felt the presence of God. We also found out that he was the pastor of the church there so it was quite surprising that he would humble himself to allow us to pray for him. I wonder if the humility didn’t quite extend to confessing his unforgiveness in front of everyone there. I don’t know. God does. We encouraged him to keep asking for himself.

After that we travelled back to the café for some dinner. We had a good chat with Bikash who I felt was a person of peace. After talking with him it became clear that he wasn’t baptised in the Holy Spirit because he would always change the subject to worldly matters if we got too deep into Godly ones. It seemed like he had heard some false teachings about speaking in tongues also. We offered to pray for him to receive but he wasn’t keen. We did what we could in that village and pray that God will send the increase.

Day 24: Travel to Kathmandu. Martin was going back to Kathmandu to his house there so invited us to come with him. That involved the longest bus ride imaginable. The distance from where we were to Kathmandu was only about 140 km’s but it took us around 7 hours to get there. The only highlight was sitting next to a random Nepali person who offered me some of his orange.

When we arrived we had something to eat, did some shopping and booked into a hotel for an early night.

Days 25-28: We didn’t have any real plans from then until our flight on day 29 so we just lived like the locals for the last few days. I went for a walk into Kathmandu with Mike, Martin and 2 of his children. 1 of the children was adopted and the other one was his biological son. It was interesting to see the difference between the 2. Martin told me that generally the orphans he picked up had no one at all to look after them. Some of them were only 3 years old when he found them and survived by rummaging through trash. They have gone through a lot of hardships and all of them really appreciated having a loving home. Now they work hard in school and are the top of their class. The biological son was also generally well behaved and the top of his class but could also throw tantrums like a spoiled brat if he didn’t get his way. The adopted children would never do that because they know how fortunate they are. It made me wonder about my own children and helped me resolve to show them how other people live in terrible circumstances in the hope that it teaches them compassion for others. I also felt God speak to me about withdrawing some money to give to Martin, especially after I heard that he has taken in approximately 20 orphans and raised them to be effective adults, all out of his own pocket.

That night we prayed for Martin’s wife who had been through brain surgery and still gets pain occasionally. She said she felt better.

Another thing I noticed about living like a Nepali person is that there is not a lot for them to do. Most of the people there also have little to no fixed income. A lot of them open shops to try and make money. The trouble is that most of the shops sell the same things because there are not a lot of commodities in Nepal. Walking down a typical street we would see a restaurant, dairy, greengrocer, butcher, another restaurant, another dairy, a 2-dollar type shop and a clothes shop. Then we would walk down the next street and see the same thing. Most of them have very few customers in a typical day and are very excited to have anyone come into their shop.

Due to not much happening, whenever something exciting does happen, it is not unusual for a crowd to quickly gather. There is no such thing as personal space. There are always people around you everywhere you go. It was certainly different to what I am used to being from a country where I get impatient if I have to cue for more than a minute at the ATM.

On the last night in Kathmandu we walked to the house of a nearby Christian family to pray for them. The husband spoke good English so we had a bit of a chat to him. He wanted prayer for ideas on how to make money. He had recently bought a very nice car using finance from the bank but had no way of making monthly repayments. He said that he bought the car to take his Mother and Mother in law to church on Saturdays because it was a long way for them to go and they were struggling with the public transport. It appeared to be another case of spending a lot of money on something material that God didn’t approve of. He could have easily bought a cheap, functional car to do the same job. I tried to talk to him about home church but he had the same glazed over look in his eyes that I see in a lot of Christians who have been going to church for a long time. The idea that you can be a Christian without ‘going’ to church was completely foreign to him.

We also prayed for healing for a few of his family. I remember watching an old lady (maybe 80) swing her arms round and round like a school girl after I prayed for her. Such faith. She asked how it was possible while she was moving her arms rapidly to test out the prayer.

Overall it was a very interesting trip with many ups and downs. It was great to see a few young people at every kickstart that really got the teaching. It was also great to be able to spend some time with them and explain that following Jesus is not just about buildings, playing on the worship team and praying constantly. It is about doing the things that he did. The highlight of the trip for me was when we cast out a demon and I had clear promptings from God about what to do at each step. I had been praying for God to use me more to cast out demons before I went on this trip and he didn’t disappoint.

The annoying part was seeing how the institution known as the church was throttling the life out of believers. Instead of moulding them into disciples of Christ, they were moulding them into obedient little servants who have no free will of their own. Jesus wants the kingdom to expand on this earth but he is limited by religion which tries to control any hint of life. A perfect example of this is when we cast a demon out a lady and shared the gospel with her. She was Hindu and interested in Jesus after being set free so we taught her about repentance, water baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit. I don’t know what other Nepali people were saying to her because our message became dress up nicely on Saturdays, come to church, sing a few songs and give some money. It was hard not to become annoyed that the labourers were confined to learning and learning and learning some more, without actually doing any practical work.

Nepal Trip - 3

Day 15: Travel to Bharatpur. Our next location was a long bus ride away and we were saying goodbye to Marduk halfway there at a place called Bharatpur. We got off the bus and had some lunch at a restaurant/hotel. While we were eating Harry announced that he was the leader of the trip and so we had to listen to what he had to say next. Then he told us that he didn’t want us with him if we were going to encourage people to meet in homes instead of in traditional churches. He said that we were there to run kickstart seminars, not to add on our own teachings. I tried to explain to him that it is not our teachings but from the book of Acts but he wasn’t interested. He told us that the only way we could continue teaching the kickstarts is if we stopped talking about home church. Mike and I told him that we weren’t prepared to do that so we decided to part company.

We booked in to a hotel and tried to figure out what to do next. While we were there I went to thelastreformation.com where the kickstart teachings came from and read what they believe the reformation will look like:

‘A reformation that will go deeper than any reformation before: away from wrong church traditions, and creating an understanding that church is who we as believers are, not where we go to on Sunday. We believe that with this reformation, we will go back to what we read in the Acts: A simple disciple-life led by the Holy Spirit, where the kingdom of God comes near in homes, on the streets, in shops – yes, all places where people are.’

Something didn’t line up with what happened. It became obvious that Harry was unhappy with us and wanted to get rid of us. He had never mentioned anything to us before so we were caught unawares but felt at peace after he left. We relaxed in the hotel while we thought about what we could do. We quickly realised that we needed a good interpreter with whatever we planned. We went for a wander around the city for a while with no real destination and ended up at a café for dinner. We asked the waiter if anyone spoke English and he said his boss was coming. When the boss turned up he spoke great English and actually taught English at a local college. When we said we were looking for sick people to pray for and an interpreter, he told us that he was busy but might be able to send us one of his students to help us! He was not a Christian but he was happy to help us out. We also got a phone call from ‘Tom’, the pastor where we were due to run the next kickstart. He was disappointed that only 1 person had turned up when they were expecting 3 and that they had been praying for the kickstart for 6 months. He wanted us to catch the next bus but I told him that he would have to run it past Harry.

Day 16: In the morning I spoke with Harry again but there was no way he wanted us with him. At least that meant that door was closed for us so I went to meet with the café owner in the morning to organise some sort of outreach. When I got there, the café owner had called a Christian friend of his who regularly goes to visit mentally unwell people in rural villages. The man was willing to take us to the villages so we could pray. As I was talking with him I received another phone call from Tom, who told us about his brother, ‘Martin’ who was also a pastor and we could run a kickstart at one of his villages. We would have to leave that day to meet with him. I said we would do that and apologised to the café owner but promised that I would call him back when we came back through. So we got on the next bus to a town called Butwal and met Martin. He is an amazing man who forced his pastor to baptise him because he was so keen to follow God. He has also taken in approximately 20 orphans into his home and clothed and fed them out of his own pocket.

Day 17: Rest day in Butwal. Good to rest as Mike and I were actually really tired. Travelled to village where we would take the kickstart.

Day 18: First day of kickstart in village. Good day of teaching with Martin translating. Mike took ‘Christian or disciple’ then I took ‘Luke 10’. All the villagers know a lot about harvesting because the fields were all being prepared so I asked them to teach me about it. I asked about preparing the soil, planting the seeds and watering the ground. Then I acted foolishly when it came to harvesting and asked them whether we yell out from the edge of the field for the harvest to come in. They all laughed at me. Then I asked whether sweeping the barn would help. Again, they all laughed. Then I asked whether music would help and pointed at the instruments on stage behind me. No one was laughing after that. Martin even stopped interpreting for a while and I had to repeat a few sentences. Mike shared ‘the gospel’ after that and got everybody to practise with each other.

Day 19: Second day of kickstart in village. I had the runs all morning. Ironically, I was supposed to speak on ‘healing the sick.’ I was not in any pain but I couldn’t stray far from the toilet. One person asked me if I needed a doctor but I just laughed and said that I would be fine.

We prayed for one lady who had a fever and immediately lay down when she came in. After praying for her for around 5 minutes she was able to sit up and drink some water. Some people there prayed for her some more and after around half an hour she was able to listen to the teaching. We found out later that she saw a ghost hand reaching into her home which wouldn’t go away unless she put some food on it. We encouraged her to tell it to go in Jesus’ name if it ever came back.

We went out to the local villages after this to find people to pray for. We didn’t talk to many people and I could sense my group wasn’t really interested in approaching anyone. We seemed to keep walking past village and houses. After a while I understood why. They were taking me to their newest church building that was half built. There was an amazing story about how it all started. The pastor of the church prayed for a lady who had been sick for years and she had spent a lot of time and money trying to get healed. When the pastor prayed for her she was healed. The husband of the woman gave some of his land to the pastor so he could build a church there so that his wife and the locals didn’t have to walk 7 km’s to get to the other church. This church was now focusing a lot of energy and resources into building a place for these people to worship together.

I saw Martin hand over a lot of money to the builders so that the work could continue on the building. When I saw this I had to walk away in disgust. I couldn’t help but think that this money could have been used in much more effective ways. The pastor had started out preaching the gospel and healing people but it had all stopped because now they were focusing on a building. Didn’t they have perfectly good homes they could meet in? I had attended a house fellowship in the last village where 40 people gathered together outside to sit on mats and worship God. There was so much joy there. These beautiful believers had been taught that to follow Jesus is to build a building and invite people there, rather than to listen to Jesus who said to ‘Go and preach the gospel.’ How many other people have been caught up in the same trap?

I was fuming on the walk back home. The 7 km walk gave me a good chance to get my heart right. I realised the people there had a heart for the kingdom of God. They genuinely wanted to see more people worshipping God but their focus was on the building, not the people.

That evening we travelled back to Butwal and had a good chat with Martin about focusing on people rather than buildings.

Day 20: Rest at Butwal. It was Mike’s turn to get the runs. I prayed for him but I think he needed some rest. I went with Martin on his motorbike to pray for an old lady who couldn’t move from her bed. She had to be helped up to go to the toilet. I prayed for her for around 30 minutes but nothing happened.

Then Martin took me to a prayer meeting. There were about 15 people there all sharing their prayer needs one by one in Nepali and Martin didn’t translate so I had no idea what was happening. When it came to my turn I just gave a brief introduction of myself and what I was doing and requested prayer for strengthened faith. After everyone had shared, they had a communal time of prayer. Some of the older ladies requested prayer for various pains in their body so Martin told me I could pray for them. A lot of them had sore knees or stomachs. I asked some of the younger ladies if they would like to pray and gave a quick example of how they should pray. It was a struggle to get them to pray short commanding prayers instead of long pleading prayers. In the end I had to do a lot of the praying, just so the ladies could get their healing.

As I was about to go one man came up to me and told me that he was always afraid. I asked him a few questions and it seemed like he had a spirit of fear. I prayed for him and came against the spirit of fear and any other unclean spirits that shouldn’t have been there. After about 1 ½ minutes of this nothing seemed to be happening so I got my interpreter to ask the man what was happening. The interpreter took one look at his face and didn’t say anything. The man was not moving but looked like he was struggling to keep something in. It almost looked like he was trying not to fart. It would have been comical except that I recognised that it was the demon. I spoke freedom over the man and told the demon to go. It didn’t want to go but I kept commanding it to for the next 5 minutes. The Nepali people that were left were joining in with me. One of the ladies started jumping from one foot to the next and clapping her hands together. I remember looking at her with a quizzical look and motioning for her to stop. At least it wasn’t as bad as what happened in the last village where Cushna whacked Anita over the head with her Bible when we were halfway through casting the demon out…

A few minutes later the man was free and felt peace. I encouraged him to resist any fearful thoughts that come along in the future and come against the schemes of the devil in Jesus’ name.

The rest of the day was uneventful.

Day 21: Butwal church service. Martin asked if Mike and I would speak at the church service the next day. Normally I’m not that keen on church services but Martin was such a strong man in faith that I didn’t want to say no to him. I had 30 minutes to summarise kickstart seminar. I shared scriptures about how the gospel comes in word and power. If we only share one of those, we are only presenting half a message. I shared how all believers need to be in the harvest field. Then I taught them how they could share the gospel in word and demonstrated the gospel in power.

After the service the people seemed more interested in organising their Easter Sunday picnic than discussing anything I had said. No matter. Hopefully God will use that in some way.

Later that day we shouted Martin and 5 of his orphan children dinner and had a good chat with Martin about the best use of resources in Nepal. He has planted many churches here and realises that having a building empty for 6 days of the week is not efficient. With some of the church buildings he has built he has added a couple of rooms for orphans or widows to sleep in.

Nepal Trip - 2

Day 7: The next day we got on another bus to our next destination which was near a city called Hetauda. The people here seemed very excited about seeing us and prepared an amazing room for us to sleep in. We had 4 days to wait before the next kickstart started so we had some time to get to know the locals. There were 2 young ladies called ‘Cushna’ and ‘Rose’ who had been put in charge of looking after us and they spoke really good English, so it was good for us to have people to disciple who understood us. We went for a walk around the village with them and ended up going to a house where a lady was very sick. She was nearly 3 months pregnant and hadn’t been able to keep any food down since she got pregnant. She was very weak and could barely leave her bed. We prayed for her and came against any evil spirits that were affecting her. After praying for her for around 5 minutes we encouraged her to eat something. She was able to eat a bowl full of noodles without vomiting which she couldn’t do beforehand. After she ate, she confessed that she had seen a spirit in her room in the past. She is a believer, so we told her how that spirit has no right to be there and that she needs to tell it to go in Jesus’ name if it ever came back.

By the time we finished praying for her, other people had joined us in the house and two older ladies wanted prayer for various sicknesses. We asked Cushna and Rose if they would pray for healing and they were keen. We told them clearly that they didn’t need to pray long. We are commanding, not asking. They did well and both of the ladies were healed. Unfortunately at every other place we went to they were in the habit of praying looooong prayers. Even after we tell them how to pray and show them how to pray, they still prayed for a long time. It was incredibly frustrating.

Day 8: We did a bit of shopping in town and then went to a village where we spoke to some believers in a house. We gave them a brief introduction to our teaching and offered to pray for people there. Two people had sore joints and so we got Cushna and Rose to pray for them and they were healed. After that we asked if anyone else needed prayer. One man said he felt angry when we were speaking. As soon as we started to pray for him he started to shake uncontrollably under the influence of a demon. We told the demon to go and it did within a few minutes. Another man had a stutter. When we spoke freedom over him he also started to shake a lot. We commanded the demon to go but this one took a bit longer to go. After around 10-15 minutes the man started to calm down a bit and felt peaceful.

Later that night we went to a house fellowship in the dark. We were walking with a group of around 12 people and as we were walking past one house, a man from inside asked if we could help with his daughter because she has an evil spirit. I thought we were going to talk to some other believers but when we got there I realised the family were all non-believers. They were just so desperate to see their daughter set free so they asked the first people they saw walking past.

The first thing she did when we got there was roll around on the ground and then put her own hand to her throat to try to choke herself. I could understand now how the family knew it was an evil spirit even without knowing anything about Jesus or God. Mike asked the family if they wanted Jesus to help their daughter and they said yes. So the four of us (Mike, Harry, Marduk the interpreter and myself) got to work commanding the demon to go in the name of Jesus. For about 1 minute the girl writhed around on the floor then stopped. I stopped praying when I saw this but Mike, Harry and Marduk kept going for another few minutes. I guess after the last demon we cast out we were expecting a long battle. When you see someone try to choke themselves you don’t expect an easy fight! Then the girl looked up with a big smile on her face and you could see that she was free.

We were getting late to the house fellowship so Mike, Harry and Marduk stayed with the girl and her family to share the gospel and I went to the house fellowship so they could start. They sung a few songs and then gave us time to speak so Harry did after finishing up at the other house.

Day 9: We went to another village and again gave an introduction of our teaching. Again we went to a house fellowship that night. This time we were in a different home. They meet up every night (apart from weekends) in a different home each night. This time Harry stayed behind so I shared a brief message on how house fellowship is just as much church as going to a weekend service. The lady from last night who was set free from a demon came along with her husband so Mike shared the gospel with them again. At the end we prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit but nothing happened at the time. I think the house fellowships only meet up for a short time and we had taken so long to share the gospel that everyone was restless about getting home.

Day 10: On our final day before the kickstart was due to begin we did some shopping again. Then we went to another house fellowship in the evening which was uneventful.

Day 11: First day of kickstart. Mike’s wife was sick, I found out that my car windscreen was cracked and we don’t have insurance, so it would cost a lot to fix and Harry was feeling discouraged. We prayed together before we started and felt a lot better. Harry took ‘Christian or disciple’ again, I took ‘Luke 10’ and Mike took ‘the gospel.’ It was a long day of teaching but there was not much interaction with the people there. We visited the pregnant lady who we prayed for earlier. She was looking much healthier. She was still throwing up after food but not as bad as before. I also had a good chat with one of the pastors there who doesn’t get paid for being a pastor, he encourages all believers to pray and loves house fellowships.

Day 12: Second day of kickstart. Mike finished speaking on the gospel and I talked on healing the sick. When I asked if anyone needed prayer, the first lady that came forward complained of having seizures. Everyone was watching this so I explained that the seizures were caused by an evil spirit. I told them the evil spirit has no right to be there and that Jesus has all authority. I said that they could help too by praying in their language. Then I told the lady to relax and started commanding the demon to leave. Normally in these situations I seem completely confident on the outside but inside I am thinking about all sorts of excuses. This time was no different and I was thinking, ‘Mike’s not here! I can’t do this by myself!’ Mike had gone off somewhere while I was teaching. I quickly realised that was a fleshly excuse, so I took that thought captive and continued destroying the works of the evil one in this lady. Harry was there, so he helped. It only took a few seconds before the lady fell back and started shaking on the ground just like the lady from the night before. Again, it only took a minute or so for the demon to leave and the lady to stop shaking. I asked her if she felt alright and she said she felt fine. I normally encourage the person to have some food or water after a deliverance. This is just because it is something normal they can do after a very unusual experience so it helps to calm them down. I’m not sure if I did it in this case. Either way, she didn’t seem perturbed by what had happened and had a big smile on her face.

After that we carried on with getting all the believers to pray for each other for healing while we wandered around getting involved where we were needed. It wasn’t long before another lady started showing signs of having a demon. She started shaking a bit and then hitting the ground with her hands and saying something in Nepali. I asked the interpreter what she was saying. It was, “I’m not coming out!” I started helping them with commanding the demon to go. After a few minutes she started rolling round on the floor, hitting the ground with her hands or flinging her arms wildly from side to side. The lady was responsive the whole time and the demon didn’t seem to be going anywhere no matter what we did. I commanded it to go for about 15 minutes but there was no change. Everyone there was focused on what was happening so I knew it had to stop. I have heard of some people talking with demons but I wasn’t sure about that. The only time Jesus ever asked a demon a question was when he asked the demon’s name. I thought I’d try that. I asked the demon (through the interpreter what it’s name was). The lady responded and I found out it’s name was Anita. So I said, “Spirit of Anita, come out!” Straight away she coughed, and I felt quite proud of myself that something happened. Then it clicked that maybe Anita was the ladies name because she was still hitting the ground after that…

I felt a bit foolish after that but there was no time for self-pity because the lady (Anita…) needed to be set free. I tried a different approach. Instead of asking the demon, I thought I’d just ask God. It had always helped in the past so I asked God, “What is happening here?” Immediately a thought came into my head, ‘witchcraft.’ I asked Anita if she had been involved in witchcraft because I thought she might need to repent of something but she said no. Then she said her Father is. Now we were getting somewhere. I still didn’t know what to do about this demon so I spoke with God again, “ok, I know it’s witchcraft now. How do I cast it out?” Then again a thought came to me, ‘worship.’ At the time there were about 15 people all around us praying in Nepali, so I asked the pastor there to get them to sing a worship song. They sung a beautiful song and the demon left before they were finished. Then we had a break for some lunch.

After lunch we decided to finish the teaching that day so we could spend the whole day out the next day. I did a quick debrief on what had happened with the demons and how all believers are commanded to cast them out. I also took some questions. One of them said that we need to make sure we have prayed a lot before preparing to cast out demons. I told them that praying continually is good, but we don’t need to be ‘prayed up’ before we can cast out demons. We can do it any time.

That night we went to another house fellowship and had a beautiful time worshipping with them.

Day 13: On the streets. We split into 4 groups and went into different areas. Each group had at least 10 people. In New Zealand if you approach someone with 10 people they may be overwhelmed but in Nepal it is normal for a big group of people to gather whenever something interesting is happening. Most people have nothing to do during the day so are happy to have people to talk to.

The area I went to is one that has been reached a lot in the past by Christians. The people we talked to were either church-going believers or completely against Christianity and not willing for us to pray for them. A lot of them seemed to be Hindu priests. One of the believers we talked to had a sore back so I got one of the group to pray for her and she was healed. The lady had a son who was deaf and mute so we spent about 10 minutes praying for him to speak properly. By the end his voice box was clearing slightly but he still couldn’t talk. I wanted to keep praying for him but my group wanted to carry on.

Overall it was pretty unexciting because we either got an immediate ‘no,’ or they were believers who were healthy. I did manage to have a good chat with some of the group and disciple them as we were walking.

At the end of the seminar they thanked us and gave us a ‘token of love’. That is basically a plaque with the words ‘Token of love’ on it including the name of the church.

That night we had dinner with some of the older generation who shared some of the persecution they had suffered as the first believers from Nepal. I can’t remember the full details but I know that the man we spoke to was imprisoned for his faith.

Day 14: Church service. Mike and I attended one church service where we thought we would be speaking while Harry and Marduk went to another service. What followed was 2 ½ hours of the most joy sapping religion that you could ever imagine. I couldn’t understand a word of what was happening so I just observed peoples body language. It was clear that no one wanted to be there. It was a very typical service: singing followed by an offering, a boring sermon followed by another offering, then some more music to finish. The only joy in the whole service was a 5-minute cultural dance put on by some of the local girls. We didn’t end up speaking and the pastor informed us that his message was on Matthew 24:4:

“Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.”

He clearly wasn’t happy with what we had talked about. We had a few run-ins with him during the kickstart and realised he was full on into tradition and I believe he was a wolf in sheeps clothing stifling this particular church. Ironically, in his message, the wolf in disguise was telling the sheep to be wary of what we were teaching them. The fruit of his teaching was evident after dinner when one lady asked us to pray for her because she was in pain. We asked her where she was sore and she told us that her whole body was sore because she had spent the whole day sifting sand and gravel to make cement to build a wall to separate the church from the house next door. I couldn’t believe that she was allowed/convinced by the leaders that this was a good use of her God-given talents and time.

Nepal Trip - 1

The opportunity to go to Nepal came about through a friend of Mike’s who has been there multiple times. He organised to run kickstart seminars through various churches in March but had some health problems so couldn’t go and asked Mike to help. When I heard about this I considered whether I could go as well. I prayed about it and all God said to me (through a dream) was not to take my work with me. Jesus said to go into all the world to make disciples and Nepal is included in that so I figured God was saying yes. My work is very quiet around February & March so the timing was good. My work is all cloud based so I could have taken my laptop with me but I think I would have been distracted. We had been given some money recently by some relatives for our new house so money was not an issue. Then Irene gave me the go ahead, saying she’d be fine with our 3 young children so everything fell into place nicely and I bought the tickets.

Day 1: Fly to Nepal. Spoke to a few people on the way about Jesus but they were not people of peace. We were picked up from Kathmandu airport by a young Christian named ‘Ashish’ and his friend. He found a hotel for us and fed us. He was very keen to show us his church building that they’d just built and he wanted us to pray for his church. We had a discussion about what church is and told him we weren’t prepared to pray for his building but we were more than happy to pray for the people that attend. I asked him what he would do if 3000 people came to faith in one day like in the book of acts. He said that God would provide a big building for them all. I told him that would take a long time to build and the people would need discipling in the meantime so that wouldn’t work. Tried to open his eyes to home church but he has been in the church system for such a long time that it proved very difficult. I left him a copy of my book.

Day 2: First kickstart near Pokhara. Met ‘Harry’, the other member of our team from Australia. He had the itinerary. Also met ‘Marduk’, our interpreter. Harry taught ‘Christian or disciple’, I taught ‘Luke 10’ and then Mike spoke on ‘the gospel’. We noticed the first signs of religious spirits at work. Whenever I asked someone to read a scripture out load or asked a question, the pastor would always respond. If we mentioned a controversial topic like water baptism, all the congregation looked at the pastor to see how he would react. It was incredibly frustrating and a common theme throughout Nepal.

That night I had a dream where I saw a group of young people in a room. An older man was standing next to the light switch. When he turned the light off, the young people slept instantly. When he turned it on, the young people woke up instantly but they were confused about where they were and weren’t happy about the person turning the light off and on but they believed they had to obey him. The older man was looking smug at his ability to control these young people.

Day 3: Mike shared the gospel using cups and water. I shared about ‘healing the sick’, then we went out on the streets (or to the villages in this case). We saw many people healed in their homes and the gospel shared with them. It was hard to know exactly what was shared because of the language barrier but we found out later that there was no talk of water baptism or receiving the Holy Spirit. All they told non-believers was to repent and ‘come to church.’ It was frustrating hearing this. I started to feel like we would see very little fruit and that the only reason we were there was to build their church, rather than building the kingdom of God.

Day 4: We went out on the streets again but didn’t find any people of peace even though there were some healings. A lot of what I taught my group this time was how to recognise a person of peace. A lot of the villagers seem to want to argue so I said that they are not people of peace and we don’t need to waste our time on them. Mike prayed for 2 ladies in his group to receive the Holy Spirit while they were out on the streets and they started speaking in tongues. These 2 ladies shared their testimony of what happened with everyone else afterwards. Then I asked if anyone else wanted to receive the Holy Spirit and they all surged forward immediately for us to pray for them. I was the only one speaking at the time and I felt like I was going to be trampled! We spent a lot of time praying for them. There were demons cast out and people experienced the presence of God. I don’t remember any of the details now unfortunately because there was so much going on. I do remember that not all of them spoke in tongues but we encouraged them that it doesn’t always happen straight away and to keep seeking God for it. Mike gave a DVD of the first Last Reformation movie to a young man there that seemed to really grab hold of what we were teaching. He came up to me later and said:

“That DVD…

There are pictures on the back…

One of them…

Is that… you?”

I just cracked up. He thought I was Torben because there is a picture of him casting out a demon in the movie.

Day 5: We spent the next day resting up in a hotel before travelling to our next location near Ghorka. Harry had to stay in Pokhara to sort out his visa so we went on without him. The trip involved a 5-hour long bus ride over the bumpiest, dustiest and most uncomfortable road I’ve ever travelled over. It never seemed to end. When we got there, we had no idea what the plan was. The pastor of the church there met us but spoke with our interpreter the whole time and we never got a word in. From what I could gather, we would speak to some of the believers first, then do some outreach after that. We slept in the church building on the floor.

Day 6: In the morning we still didn’t have much of a clue about what was happening. Eventually people started showing up for teaching until there were around 30 people there. We did a brief teaching on healing the sick, then started praying for a few of them and got them praying for each other.

One of the things we noticed right from the start is that they have very strong traditions which aren’t from the Bible. For them, the women sit on one side and the men sit on the other, they always want to play worship songs in the church building and they sit facing the front during services. The honoured guests always get to sit in the best seats and eat before everyone else. Mike and I quickly set about trying to break these traditions. We would constantly move from our ‘seats of honour’ in the shade to sit with the normal believers in the hot sun. We preached from different sections of the building, told them not to play any songs and often asked everyone to sit in a circle. It was always funny to watch people’s faces when we told them we don’t go to church! We were there to teach them that ALL believers can preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons and baptise people. We couldn’t teach one thing and then act another way.

A lot of the people were healed after our teaching then we asked if anyone wanted to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. Again, a lot of them were keen. We prayed for one lady to start off with through our interpreter and told her that, after she received, she would be expected to pray for others. There was quite a struggle for her to receive and we had to cast out a few demons. It took around 30 minutes but by the end she was laid out on the ground speaking in tongues. I learnt the value of perseverance during this. Some people just take a long time to receive. As long as they are willing to be prayed for, keep praying for them.

After this we prayed for around 15 others. 8-10 of those received the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues. The first ones that spoke in tongues helped us to pray for the others. That certainly made a difference. I was praying for one lady in English for approximately 20 minutes with seemingly no impact. When another lady who spoke in tongues shortly before came and prayed for her in their language, the impact was immediate. She started shaking and spoke in tongues not long after that. I think a big part of receiving the Holy Spirit is to ‘receive’. I was telling that lady constantly that God wants to give her the gift and was offering it to her freely, but it wasn’t until she could understand what was being offered to her that she was able to receive it for herself.

Not all the people spoke in tongues straight away and again, we encouraged them to keep asking God for themselves.

After all this was over, we found out that there was a young lady there who wanted to be baptised in water. We found some water and were about to baptise her. We could sense a bit of reluctance on the part of the believers there for some reason. We quickly worked out what that was when the pastor arrived back. He had been away all day at a meeting and just arrived back when we wanted to do the baptism. He informed us that it is their policy to wait 6 months before baptising anyone so that they can fully understand what it is all about. We had a very strong argument with him and asked him whether he followed man or God because in the book of Acts new believers were always baptised on the day of belief. We told the pastor that we couldn’t compromise our message and that we would walk out if he wasn’t prepared to allow the girl to be baptised that day. He didn’t relent so we packed our bags and started the 8km walk out of there 30 minutes before it was due to get dark.

The 2-hour hike was a hard one, but we were confident we were doing the right thing. We eventually found the main road and caught a ride to pick up Harry (who had been waiting for us since we started walking) and then get dropped off at a hotel for some much-needed rest.

Irene's deliverance as a Spirit-filled Christian

Mike & April with Us a Month Ago

What I Remember

One Saturday evening (6 Jan 2018) we were waiting for our friends Mike and April to arrive at our house. I remember seeing April walking into the house around 7:30pm and asking her whether they’d had dinner.

The next thing I remember is waking up, still very sleepy, and realising I was lying across both the kids’ beds in their room, seeing a blurry image of my husband Andrew, and April who was holding my 7-week old baby, looking over me. I heard April say to me, “Irene, you need to feed your baby.” I closed my eyes straight after that but felt April trying to latch baby onto me. Then I went back to sleep again.

The next time I woke up I was flinging my arms side to side and groaning as if I was in agony, and I again saw a blurry vision of Andrew in the room, subconsciously thinking maybe he was trying to wake me to move me to our bed to sleep for the night. But I went back to sleep again.

Later, I woke again. This time I was up and had got off the kids beds. I remember seeing Andrew, who must’ve been in the room, and told him that I needed to go to the toilet. As I was walking there I turned back to check on the kids bed and was surprised to see the kids weren't there. I asked Andrew, “Where’s Ethan?” and he said, “They’re both sleeping in the lounge.” The word ‘they’ struck me, as I recalled very quickly that I had another child called Hannah. I felt quietly shocked within myself but didn’t say anything about that to Andrew. It felt like my brain was very slowly collecting its pieces together.

After going to the toilet, I walked to our bed to lie down for sleep. Andrew followed me into the room and asked if he should get Zoe from April for me. I said yes. I had no idea what time it was or what day it was or how I ended up in the kids room before then. [But when Andrew came in with Zoe I had fallen asleep again, without me realising, and didn't wake for another 2 hours].

After I fed Zoe, I passed her back to Andrew who put her down to sleep, and I went back to sleep again, in the same clothes I had been wearing that day.

For the whole of Sunday (next day), I slept, waking only to feed Zoe every 3 hours and only ate as much as a few spoonful of rice in the evening that day. It felt like my memory was slowly coming back to me. I also found myself physically very sore, as I tried to turn sides in bed. It was as if I had been to an intense workout the day before for the first time in years. I remember later, Mike asking me whether I felt like I had done 7 days of gym in a row. All my joints were aching so much.

On the Monday morning when I woke up and chatted to the others, I slowly gathered information on what had happened to me. I was totally oblivious to what actually happened over the weekend.

What Actually Happened

Shortly after Mike and April had arrived at our house, some time after I asked them whether they had had dinner, I mentioned that I was tired and was going to get ready for bed. I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom when April came in to wash her hands. She asked me a question at the time but I turned around without looking at her and stood outside the bathroom and continued brushing my teeth with my back facing her. She thought it was unusual that I didn’t answer her and that I had my back to her, but also thought maybe it was because I was brushing my teeth, so she thought she would ask me again when I went back to join them in the lounge.

But I never went back to the lounge. I had walked into the kids’ room and was reading them a book. Andrew heard me and thought that was unusual, as it was an hour after their bedtime and he had already put them to bed. He thought maybe I wanted to keep the kids quiet because Mike and April were here (our children sometimes play up before they eventually fall asleep after they’ve been put to bed).

Next, they heard an unusual scream from me from the kids’ room. Andrew came to check. He found me lying across both the kids’ beds having what looked like an epileptic seizure. Both the children were watching and asking what Mama was doing. Andrew stayed calm and began to pray for me immediately. Then he yelled out, “Mike! April!” At first, they didn’t come, but just sat in the lounge. A few seconds later, Andrew yelled out again, “Mike! April! Come!” When they both came in, they also immediately started praying for me.

For the next two and a half hours, they took turns always having two people praying for me in the room, while the other looked after Zoe, who was crying by this stage, as she was hungry for her 9:30pm feed and the other children had been moved to the lounge to sleep on the mattress on the floor. It became very obvious that I was being tormented by a demon or possibly demons.

I was thrown into 4-5 seizures, was biting my tongue so hard that I was foaming a lot of blood from my mouth. They had to get a towel to put under me to catch the blood. In between the seizures my face turned grey and blue, as if I was dead. I had no movement/strength on my left hand. At one point April held up my right hand and asked me to squeeze her hand, which I apparently did but with very little strength at all. A few times she told me to look at her, which I apparently did, but with very evil looking eyes. They worked out pretty quickly that it wasn’t me looking through those eyes.

This whole time they commanded any unclean spirit to leave me and to stop tormenting me. Andrew told me later that he was prepared to keep going until he saw me set free, that there could only be one outcome. They eventually stopped praying when it became clear that I was coherent enough to respond to basic questions and my movements were normal so they let me sleep.

Feeding Baby Zoe

At around midnight while I was sleeping, Mike, April and Andrew were trying to figure out how to feed baby Zoe. She had missed her 9:30pm feed completely and she was now sleeping. They weren’t sure when I was going to be able to feed her so thought of other alternatives. Unfortunately, the only shops that are open 24 hours in Tokoroa are petrol stations. Mike was prepared to take a 2 hour road trip to Hamilton to get some formula. Andrew said that it wouldn’t be necessary as I had recovered well over the last half hour that I should be ok to feed in an hour or so. Fortunately, that turned out to be exactly what happened.

Trying to Fill in the Blanks

Over the next few days, each time I learned about something that happened that night I couldn’t help but cry, as I was feeling totally confused as to why I couldn’t remember anything. I kept saying, “It was as if I wasn’t there.” Mike comforted me by saying that although we don’t dwell on what had happened, I had been traumatised physically and emotionally, even though I wasn’t there consciously. I had to let my body catch up and process what did happen.

The aches in my body took a couple of days to heal. It has now been 10 days and my tongue is still a little bit tender, but at least I can talk properly now. But the trauma in my mind is still a battle to get through each day as I continue to ask God to help me understand the ‘whys’.

I also decided to be water baptized on the Monday to get rid of any remaining demons and for Christ to cleanse me of all my sins. April had a word for me that I had unforgiveness towards my parents, which I repented of while standing in the water. 

God Answering Mike & April's Prayer from 2 Weeks Earlier

I also found out that Mike & April had a strong urge to pray for me 2 weeks earlier. They had been driving in the car and actually pulled over to pray for me for God to deliver me from any hindrance in my life.

God has also been faithful to answer my questions. He showed me that the demons came through the birth trauma I had with our first baby, which was a 3-day intense labour at the hospital, followed by a blood transfusion after our baby was born, due to a large amount of blood loss.

But also, through me not taking every thought captive, but voicing even the negative thoughts, which eventually gave way to the critical spirit to enter. There were other things like unforgiveness, especially towards my parents. Also, being under their control has made me vulnerable to attacks.

A New Person

After the deliverance and getting over the initial shock, there hasn’t been a day when I have gone without praying in tongues, reading the Word and singing in praise and worship to Jesus. I only just realised that I hadn’t done these things for a while, maybe even a couple of years. The words in the Bible seem more personal to me, like I’m reading it with new eyes and ears.

Another big thing is that my behavior/attitude as a wife has improved. I used to constantly have critical thoughts towards my husband’s actions. For example, whatever he did I would say it was a bad idea. I would always find something wrong with him. ‘Why does he do that?’ ‘What was he thinking?’ ‘Why doesn’t he think about what I would like?’ In my mind, he was never good enough.

After my deliverance, these thoughts of complaints still came, but I found myself keeping my mouth shut, not letting those complaints be spoken. Realising now that those critical thoughts about my husband came from the demons, to tempt me to sin. My eyes have open and I see so clearly now that I am so blessed to be married to Andrew. He is more than what I deserve. I find myself more submissive towards him.

My attitude towards raising our children has also relaxed a bit. I didn’t even realise I had become so serious about wanting to do a good job with them that there was no more joy left in our family. I had also become so focused on making sure my family ate the right food at all times and keeping ourselves away from bad influences. But Jesus said don’t worry about what you eat or drink or wear. In fact, don’t even worry about tomorrow. Today has enough worries of its own. I am enjoying my children more and making sure they know I love them, just as God loves us.

Living the True Life

Now, my eyes have opened to focus on the only thing that matters, things of the kingdom of God. That there is an unseen war going on while we are here on earth. That Jesus has provided us the ONLY WAY to win this war. That God DOES love us SO MUCH! More than what we could ever comprehend! My life seems to be without stress. It is so good. Like, I am finally enjoying what God has always wanted for me to enjoy.

Before Mike and April came to our house, they were fellowshipping with a few close friends in Tauranga. As they were leaving, one of them had offered to lend them this book by Derek Prince called ‘They Shall Expel Demons.’ Initially, Mike turned it down as he wasn’t a reader, but at the last minute, April said to him, “Mike, are you not gonna take the book?” So they brought the book to our house and I have been the one reading it. It has answered a lot of my questions since the "spontaneous" deliverance.

How Do Demons Enter?

Derek Prince wrote about how a lot of born-again believers actually need deliverance from demons, but don’t get the help they need because the majority of Christians do not believe that born-again believers can be demonised. Demons could either have been there before someone is born-again or they could enter even AFTER salvation and baptism. Most people have demons they don’t even know about, such as was my case. Demons like to conceal their existence. It is impossible for me to cover all about demons here, but here is a very brief list (found in Prince’s book) of how demons can come in:

• A family background in the occult or false religions
• Other negative prenatal influences
• Pressures in early childhood
• Emotional shock or sustained emotional pressure
• Sinful acts or habits
• Laying on of hands
• Idle words

Since the birth trauma, four years ago, it was a slow, gradual influence by the demons, who first put thoughts into my head and made them sound like they were my thoughts. Then, one day, my actions started to follow these thoughts and that’s when they successfully overcame me. Even though I had been a Christian for nearly 10 years before then and was filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, it is possible for a Spirit-filled Christian to also be demonised.

The Continuous Battle but This Time With Armour On

Everyday since the deliverance I have had thoughts tempting me to deny that the deliverance ever took place, especially since I was not aware of it happening. So putting this together has been a challenge but has helped me tremendously in terms of processing what happened. I have had many temptations to be critical again but recognized straight away those thoughts are not God’s will for my life. I have also been plagued with the fear of demons, that I would be scared having to get up to feed Zoe in the middle of the night. But each time I feel fear I say out loud "God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and sound mind!" (2 Tim 1:7)

Each time I have stayed faithful to Jesus, I feel He strengthens me more. I stay faithful by abiding in Him at all times. When I’m not with anyone, I make sure my mind and mouth are not idle. When those critical thoughts come into my mind, instead of yielding to them, they now serve as a reminder for me to start praying in tongues or turn some worship music on. If those were critical thoughts towards a particular person, instead of voicing them (which I see now is no different to gossip), I would ask God to bless that person instead. It is so awesome. 

Though I still feel a heaviness over me, I know that the demons are on the outside of me just trying to get back in. God says to resist the devil and he will flee from you. Jesus resisted the devil by saying, “It is written…” which shows me I really need to know my Scriptures too. Those are the weapons of my warfare.

I know this testimony may have been a shock to read for some of you who know me. We wanted to share it because we know there are many more of you, our friends, out there who may need deliverance too. We can help you. Please talk to one of us.

My final word has to be, GOD IS SOOOO GOOD! WE LOVE HIM, OUR FAITHFUL JESUS!